Today’s outing was shorter than usual but it had a specific purpose, as hinted in the title.

The clouds that characterised the weather of the last couple of days had blown away and the sun was shining once more. Despite this, the air was still cool, around 12°C (54°F).

Finsbury Public Library

Our journey took us down St John Street to Finsbury Public Library. The library is still closed, of course, as is the Local History Museum that shares the same building, but this was not our destination in any case.

That was opposite, on the other side of the road.

The Launderette

I have mentioned elsewhere (see Laundry day) that we do not have a washing machine in our small flat and therefore have to make use of launderettes. As you can imagine, the lockdown, which has not only limited our movements but has also closed most “non-essential” shops and businesses, has caused us to exhaust our supply of wearables. We have made do as much as possible for as long as possible but that train has finally hit the buffers!

Happily, during our rambles, we discovered that the little launderette opposite the library was open for “service washes”, that is, the customer deposits bags of laundry and the staff member washes these for a small fee on top of the normal charges for use of the machines. Today, then, we put our first two bags of laundry into the shopping trolley and trundled this down to the launderette.

This was our first experience of service washes as we normally do the job ourselves. The staff member was polite and friendly and explained everything to us such as the likely cost (which depends partly on how many drying cycles are needed, which is not easily predictable) and when we can collect the laundry, duly washed and dried. It will probably work out a little more expensive than if we did it ourselves but not by much.

Once outside, we looked at one another, both with the same thought in mind: we might choose this method in future instead of doing all the work ourselves!

In some people’s minds, launderettes have a bad reputation, but we have always used them, having no alternative. There are good ones and bad ones and sometimes, on busy days, there is competition for machines. You also have to plan ahead and make sure you have an adequate supply of the right coins for the machines. Using the service wash obviates all these problems, hence the glint in our eye.

From the launderette, we followed a zig-zag path through the side streets to our friends at Myddelton’s deli where we bought our usual coffee.

Tomorrow we should receive a phone call to say that our laundry is ready for collection. What luxury! I could become used to this!